Billie Holiday

Description

A revelatory new biography of one of the greatest jazz singers of all time. Today, Billie Holiday is an icon - an artist whose voice has weathered countless shifts in public taste, and whose impact on contemporary music is unquestionable. But when eighteen-year-old Billie Holiday stepped into Columbia studios in November of 1933 to record 'Riffin' the Scotch' and 'Your Mother's Son-in-Law', no one could predict the sensation that was about to emerge; marking the beginning of what is arguably the most remarkable and important career in twentieth-century popular music. Drawing on revelatory new material, including unpublished memoirs and interviews, Billie Holiday is the first account to consider the singer as an artist, her influences, her uncanny voice and rhythmic genius, a number of her signature songs, and her legacy.

John Szwed is Professor of Music and Jazz Studies at Columbia University, and Director of the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University. He is the author of a number of books, including Billie Holiday- The Musician and the Myth, Alan Lomax- The Man Who Recorded the World and So What- The Life of Miles Davis.

John Szwed's swift, conversational and yet detail-rich new biography, Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth, communicates its artist-first priorities in the subtitle, and then makes good on them throughout ... That's about as fine a centenary-year gift as anyone had a right to expect. * Guardian * Insightful, investigative... entertaining and illuminating ... a wonderfully engaging and revealing look at the great Lady Day. * The Scotsman * Illuminating account restores to the singer the dignity of a true artist. * Observer * A musicologist's appreciation of the jazz singer... a marvel. * Independent * Szwed's book offers a fresh attempt to understand and explain the nature and scope of Holiday's achievement. * Times Literary Supplement *